Often Irreverent, Mostly Rational Blog for Fans of the Toronto Blue Jays. One Day, We'll Be Perfect.

Monday, June 1, 2009

The Dopeness and the Wackness of the Weekend that Was

As much as it sucked to watch the Red Sox saunter off with a win in the series closer with their douchiest duo cranking out homers and walking over Jays pitchers yesterday, this weekend provided some much needed relief for the lot of us fans who suffered through the past few weeks.

Let's break the weekend down into its component parts, shall we?

The DopenessNot only is it fun to watch Brian Tallet continue his winning ways in this Summer of Tallet, but it was kinda cool to see him with his blue bandana at the center of attention in the post game interviews afterwards. Tallet seems like a smart dude, and doesn't seem as though he's been media trained to the point of incoherency. Considering the lack of really compelling voices on this team, it's nice to hear someone speak frankly and incisively about his changing and developing role...

After a slow start, Alex Rios is on a roll. The Blisfully Oblivious Gazelle is on a six game hitting streak, and has extra base hits in his last four games, including two doubles in his 4-for-4 outing on Saturday. He's raised his OPS from .726 to .776 over those six games. Moreover, his swing looks more comapct and quieter over the past week or so, which augurs well for the Jays' offensive fortunes given his role as the number three hitter...

The WacknessThe Jays bullpen continues to struggle, and no pitcher has struggled more mightily than Brian Wolfe. In his last two appearances, Wolfe has given up six runs and three homers, and his fastball has looked as straight and hittable as a batting practice soft toss. No one in the bullpen has looked great lately, but Wolfe's flat out lousy performance should earn his a trip back to Las Vegas, and soon...

Ricky Romero has shown some flashes of his early season form, but gets himself too deep into counts by picking and nibbling or just missing his spots. The five walks and two homers he gave up to the Red Sox on Sunday are certainly a cause for concern, although we hope that he'll be able to right himself with another couple of starts...

We're fans of José Bautista, maybe more than most Jays fans. And while we understand that JoBau came to Toronto last year as a guy who strikes out a lot, his eight whiffs in his last 17 plate appearances is sucking the life out of the bottom of the order...

"Nothing personal, Rance. But Rance Mulliniks' middle name should be "Statingtheobvious.'' Mulliniks also informed the New England audience Sunday that Nick Green, one of the offending shortstops, was a "young rookie.'' This is Green's fifth year getting big-league at-bats, with his fifth team. NESN might want to make it mandatory that analysts it has subbing for the ailing Jerry Remy actually have heard of the players in the starting lineup."

During the bottom of the second I was thinking to myself, "Self," I thought, "This could be the end of the Summer of Tallet, and it's not June 21st yet. He was not very good in those first two innings and is on pace to be out after four innings." Then Halladay put on the fake mustache and the rainbow clown wig (re-dyed to match Tallet's natural colour) and he showed that he can pitch almost as well with his left.

And Dbag nation is just upset because Rance didn't go into extensive dissing of the Jays and it hurt their self-esteem. And isn't Eck's prescence in the booth also stating the obvious. The obvious being Eck saying asshole things because Eck is an asshole.

Casey Janssen comes back as the same pitcher he always was. A gamer with great control but no out pitch. The problem is that the Jays have plenty of these types (Litsch and Richmond come to mind). I am not anti-Janssen, but we need a very good offense (and defense) for these types of pitchers to be anything more than a #4. Once they are all healthy, someone has to go and I don't think it should be Richmond.

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